Onar Writes:
> Well, I've always fancied the sun. If it isn't alive then it's darn close. It
> is dissipative, self-producing (as far as I can see) and has a definite
> boundary.
The sun dissipates, its form is defined by internal processes (the balance
between the contraction due to its own gravity and the expansion due to its
thermo-nuclear reaction) (all from within)... so it is self organizing... It
is temporally spanning...it goes until the free energy runs out.
As for self-producing...I like to associate self-producing with some kind of
material and energy flow-through. This way of thinking requires dividing
the whole into a system and environment. Is it too much of a stretch to
partition the sun (the whole) into a system (where the thermonuclear reaction
takes place) and an environment (the non-reacting reservoir of super-heated
plasma)? Then one can think of a material flow-through. In Rosen's language
of efficient and material cause, possibly the efficient cause of any particular
thermonuclear incident could be the thermonuclear incident that preceded it
(providing sufficient free energy to trigger the reaction)...the material cause
could be the supply of plasma. The final cause of the thermonuclear incident
could be to be the efficient cause of the next thermonuclear incident. An
H-bomb is different in that it lacks any steady self-image (no temporally
spanning near steady state). A fission reactor, which has a steady
self-image, is controlled from the outside. The sun's gravity also serves
the purpose of internally keeping the plasma reservoir available for the
thermonuclear reactions (thus manipulating the plasma environment). The
system is grounded in that there is an explanation for the initial
thermonuclear incident (it is caused by the tremendous heat due to
gravitational contraction...or indirectly due to a preceding fission reaction).
We can also trigger fusion (unfortunately) right here on earth.
For Bruces definition of terms request, it may be useful to concentrate on
a handful of examples to iron out what we mean by the various terms we are
using. Our recent examples have been
1) the biological cell, 2) computers, 3) the sun
It might be useful to get more examples and start to classify them in
categories based on our definition of the terms....
Onar writes:
> I believe we've missed the train of Life on this planet. Life has a tendency
> to override and control all other systems it comes in touch with. There may be
> no more room for new life on earth.
Are you saying that evolution has effectively stopped, or that there are no
longer any acts of life arising by non-evolutionary means?
Bruce writes:
> Most computation involves a loss of information - this is necessarily so if
> you are using a finite computer for many computations...
> Thus any finite computational device, which keeps on doing
> computations will be necessarily dissipative, almost regardless of
> the nature of that computation.
Onar Writes:
> Despite the fact that computer models cannot be living I believe that this is
> the place where we will see the most successful models of autopoiesis. If
> today's existing computer models of autopoiesis could be coupled with todays
> computer models of dissipative structures then I definitely think we'd have an
> interesting product.
Another useful tool may be to work with actual material processes that dissipate
like electrical circuits with resistors. These can be modeled on computers with
programs like SPICE. This may offer the best of both worlds (the ease and
convenience of using computers and the rigor of the thermodynamic concepts like
energy and entropy as applied to the material world.
Some definitions:
SELF-PRODUCING - A system in which the components that do stuff (process or
manufacture stuff) were themselves processed or manufactured within the
system. The production is a continual process. The populations of
processors (or producers) are continually degrading and have to be replaced.
Consider the following relationships:
A comes from the environment.
C turns A into B
B turns C into D
D turns B into C
The system would also have to be self-organized so that these relatinships
occur. The system is closed to efficient cause. Efficient cause refers
to what does the processing. All of the processors come from other
processes. The system continually produces itself. The system can be
grounded (or kick-started) by providing C from outside. C would then
convert the environmental A into B. B would start converting C into D,
and D would in turn start converting B into C. The self-producing system
would come into existence. It may be difficult, though, to even define
C away from the context of B and D.
EXAMPLES: all life forms, (possibly the sun), (future invention by PCPer?)
SELF-REPRODUCING - When a self-producing system replicates by internally self-
producing enough stuff for two complete systems, then seperating into two
autonomous parts.
EXAMPLES: all life forms (possibly the sun)
REPRODUCTIVE (REPLICATION) - when a system (self-producing or
not-self-producing) can make a copy of itself. For a non-self-producing
system (for example) the parent system would have to go to an external pool of
pre-manufactured parts, pick out the right ones, assemble them, and download
any pertinent software. The non-self-producing replicating system (I'm
envisioning_ would have to be constructable from a serial set of commands (by
following an algorithm). A system whose construction is not algorithmic, could
only be self-reproduced (grown).
EXAMPLES of replicating systems: life, certain computer programs,
SELF-REFERENTIAL - its meaning is captured in the following lines...
The definition of something has itself in the definition.
Something must already be produced in order for it to self-produce
Something must already have happened before in order for it to happen again...
EXAMPLES: life, the sun, certain formal systems like hypersets or Rosen's
version of category theory.
AUTOPOIETIC - until I'm enlightened by others, I'm equating this to
self-producing. I have also been using the word "complex" in this context.
But this causes confusion since the word "complex" is used in so many other
contexts.
SELF-ORGANIZED - The shape, form, or other characteristic features comes about
by internal forces or reactions. It isn't imposed from outside....although it
may only exist as long as there is an adequate source of energy and/or
material from outside (or stored inside)
EXAMPLES: things like hurricanes, tornadoes, the Bernard cells (the hexagonal
shaped convection eddies that can form in a solution that is being heated),
the SUN, life, etc.
self-reproducing is a subset of self-producing.
self-reproducing is a subset of replicating
self-producing is a subset of self-organized
Jeff Prideaux (self-produced sysem)